Theatre of Harlem: Up-and-Coming, But To Where?

Dance Theatre of Harlem stopped performing in 2004. After 9/11 its fundraising declined until it was no longer able to sustain the cost of a classical ballet company. But its school, and its junior ensemble, have carried on, continuing to develop young, mostly African- American, talent.  At Jacob’s Pillow last week, the Dance Theatre of Harlem Ensemble showcased its current generation of up-and-coming young ballet stars, many of them ready to graduate to a top company. But with no place to go. More on that in a moment.

   “Fête Noir,â€� set to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, is a Balanchine-style group piece, choreographed by DTH’s founder, Arthur Mitchell (who was the first African-American star in Balanchine’s New York City Ballet).  The women are in delicate, rose-colored dresses, the men in crisp and dashing military garb. Glowing and energetic, the dancers navigate the intricate yet stately court-style dances, with their flowing diagonal lines and brilliant high jumps, with precision. Flavia Garcia, as one of the leads, and Gary Rawls in the ensemble, particularly stood out.

   DTH was the first cultural organization to break the American cultural ban on South Africa, and one result of their six-week tour there in 1992 was “South African Suiteâ€� set to the jazz and Afro-inspired music of the Soweto String Quartet and choregraphed by Mitchell, Augustus van Heerden and Laveen Naidu.
It opens with a sinuous solo, danced last Wednesday night by Mayuko Shoka, who moved slowly on all fours — pointe shoes and hands, hips thrust upward, in slow motion, like a giraffe. The piece blends classical steps, with their erect upward thrust, with earthier moves:  pumping chests, swiveling hips and a lower center of gravity.

   In Peter Pucci’s “Episode,â€� a couple (Alexandra Jacob and Samuel Wilson) wear unitards that are black on one side, red on the other, the woman’s a mirror image of the man’s. They are attached, rarely letting go as their limbs weave and twine so it’s difficult to know where one dancer ends and the other begins. He seems to control her, like a puppet. Sometimes the movements suggest human partners, sometimes something more abstract like sea creatures, but almost always like an academic experiment — how many ways can we hold and bend and twist and suspend our bodies?

   Robert Garland’s “New Bachâ€� returns to Balanchine-style classicism, but with some street swagger: jutting hips and snapping fingers break into the arabesques and bourrées. With relentless speed these young dancers toss off quadruple pirouettes, yet they are light and easy, embodying the joyfulness of the Violin Concerto in A.

   Dance Theatre of Harlem holds an important role in the cultural history of the 20th century, when major ballet companies refused to hire black dancers, arguing they were built differently or wouldn’t fit in. It proved that black dancers could perform with the same elegance and precision as anyone. But one look at the websites of the major ballet companies shows that little has changed in 40 years. Neither the American Ballet Theatre nor New York City Ballet appear to have more than the tiniest handful of black dancers. Now DTH’s leading ballerina, Virginia Johnson, has taken charge of the company and is seeking to revive its highest level. The young dancers of the DTH Ensemble prove that there is plenty of talent here to fill a dance company once she succeeds.